Recruitment of community college mentors for HS teachers in Kern MA Upskilling Project is underway — applications available

The Kern Master’s Upskilling Project is now recruiting community college professors to serve as mentors for high school teachers enrolled in the project to earn master’s degrees in Math or English qualifying them to teach dual enrollment courses.

Tom Burke, Kern MA Upskilling Lead, said that with the naming last month of two faculty mentor coordinators, Dr. Liz Rozell and Dr. Vikash Lakhani, the project welcomes community college professors in the South Valley to serve as mentors to the participating high school teachers.

The mentors  will provide support as the mentees set up curriculum and pedagogy Burke said. They will be paid two stipends of $1,000 each during their mentorship period.

As faculty mentor coordinators, Rozell and Lakhani are working with Burke to recruit, assign and coordinate professors from community colleges as mentors.

The Kern Master’s Upskill Program is a partnership between the Kern Regional K-16 Education Collaborative and the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium that was launched in 2022 as part of an $18 million statewide competitive grant awarded to the collaborative to improve student progress from high school to postsecondary education and ultimately into the workforce.

Dual enrollment is one pathway the K-16 state grant will achieve its objectives with the upskill program providing 100 South Valley high school teachers the opportunity to earn a master’s degree that achieves state qualifications for teaching community college dual enrollment English and math courses at local high schools.

A key component of the program is the pairing of the participating high school teachers with community college professors who will serve as mentors.

The first cohorts of 21 math students and 25 English students in the Kern Master’s Upskill Program began courses in January through Fresno Pacific University and National University respectively. (The current cohorts will be assigned mentors this summer).

Burke said this mentorship will advance intersegmental collaborations in several ways:

• Instructors from high schools and colleges will get to know each other better, sharing curricula, pedagogy, and andragogy;
• Mentors will share their experience of teaching college courses, while the high school teachers will share their knowledge of motivating high school students;
• Opportunities in the future can include high school teachers with master’s degrees teaching on the college campus and college instructors teaching on the high school campus, as both increase their knowledge and understanding of the cultures of each institution;
• Mentors and mentees in the region may form a collegial group that will come together during and after the project to compare notes and create a network of intersegmental instructors in the area.

For more information,  contact the mentor coordinators: (Math) – lizrozell@gmail.com;  (English) – vikashlakhani@hotmail.com.